Huawei seeks US security partnership

04 JUN 2019

LIVE FROM HUAWEI CYBERSECURITY LAB, DONGGUAN, CHINA: Huawei expressed a desire to use European partnerships as a model for a new cybersecurity collaboration in the US, but said it is yet to make contact with the relevant security agencies.

Jeff Nan, a senior expert on cybersecurity and privacy protection affairs at Huawei, told journalists the company hasn’t yet replicated security monitoring schemes it has in place in the UK and Germany because the US government hasn’t given it the opportunity.

“We’d like to establish the scheme just like the UK Huawei Cyber Security Evaluation Centre, but we need to communicate with the security agencies in the US government. If the government would like to do this, Huawei definitely would like to do this.”

Nan said such a partnership would allow Huawei to address specific concerns the US government has about its products. But, as things stand, he added the company has little to work with in the way of detailed complaints.

While the US National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed many security standards, he noted the government hasn’t used any of those to conduct an objective assessment of Huawei’s products.

Security set-up
Martin Wang, director of Huawei’s cybersecurity lab, shed light on Huawei’s rigorous internal testing regime, noting each component of a given product undergoes a risk assessment before being subjected to hundreds of tests.

For instance, he noted a total of 1,114 test cases were run on 4G RAN equipment to detect and mitigate vulnerabilities before it received approval for launch. He added there is a particular focus on privacy testing for Huawei’s consumer devices, with 1,724 out of 2,587 test cases run on its Mate smartphone line focused on privacy.

Despite the company’s struggles in the US and widely publicised questions about the integrity of Huawei’s systems, Wang said morale among his team remains high.

“In any circumstances we will focus on our job and our responsibility, and this is how we cope with external challenges.”

Author

Diana Goovaerts

Diana is Mobile World Live's US Editor, reporting on infrastructure and spectrum rollouts, regulatory issues, and other carrier news from the US market. Diana came to GSMA from her former role as Editor of Wireless Week and CED Magazine, digital-only...